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Digital Media Design

Task 3 – Animation

Our third task was about exploring the different principles of motion picture creation. We looked at the roots of animation and in particular at an object called a praxinoscope. Such object was capable of creating the illusion of movement though complex use of internal mirrors and elliptical motion.

INTERPRETATION

We were told to draw an animated sequence based on the theme of ‘CYCLE’. So I went ahead and made a small hand-drawn sequence based on the theme of ‘CYCLE’.

This sequence was relatively easy to make as it only involved me drawing doodles on post-it notes. After I had all my sequence drawn I then proceeded to take pictures of each doodle and then using Photoshop I put them all together using the timeline feature and exported the sequence as a GIF.

Here’s my 12 frame animation cycle, it was made using the same method I described on my previous paragraph:

Here’s what we did in the animation workshop:

We used a walking sequence and then separated each frame by using a tool in Photoshop called the polygonal lasso tool, we then proceeded to add each into object into their specific layers and created a timeline with all the layers. We then exported the sequence as a GIF, and this was the result.

Here’s my out-take to a technique called onion skinning, It works by showing the artist the last frame of the animation so that he or she can use it as a guide to determine where to draw the next frame.

Animation History Research

Here’s a History of animation timeline I created for another personal project but that I believe perfectly relates to this project:

This theory was discovered by a Roman Poet called Lucretius on 1824 the theory was further backed up by a man called Peter Mark Roget, a british physician, natural theologian and lexicographer. Such theory dictates that already-seen images can be retained by humans on the back of their retinas for a split-second. This suggests that animation is created by the illusion of motion that is created when many frames ( A minimal amount of 5-8) are played together in the duration of a second or less. We don’t notice the small fractional skips because the persistence fills in the momentary gaps to make the motion ‘seem seamless’.

OUTCOME

So far I’ve learned about the various different types of animation mediums. Animation as a whole seems to be very old and interesting. Overall this task was very fun to do and I am looking forward to doing more of it!.

Bibliography

How to Draw Animations : Persistence of Vision in Animation – YouTube. 2014. How to Draw Animations : Persistence of Vision in Animation – YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWIXxiMeJIg. [Accessed 09 November 2014].